Dunwall's Fury
by robertskycard
Summary: Civilizations are more frail than we care to admit. It only takes something as simple and primal as a plague to bring a once thriving continent to its knees.


**Author's Note:**

**I just kinda started writing this and I don't really know why. I decided to post it because, hey, why not?**

* * *

"Don't you find it a bit strange that the Lord Protector murdered the Empress's mother?"

"It wasn't Corvo that killed the old Empress Kaldwin, way I heard it."

"But what about the fact that he was the Masked Knife of Dunwall who done cut down half the city with his blade?"

"You need to stop reading filth."

"He's not a natural sort."

Corvo ignored the two sailors as they whispered back and forth, swabbing the deck. He'd heard the comments a thousand times before and would a thousand times again. He took no pride in his deeds. He'd been duped into murder for the Conspiracy. The lives he took after their betrayal had been a necessity. He only cared for one opinion, that of Emily Kaldwin, the Empress of Dunwall. She adored him as a father figure, and that was all that mattered. Everything else was supposition, superstition, and fear. Fear was good. They would take him seriously as a bodyguard. Not just any bodyguard, the Lord Protector, who stood at the Empress's side at all times, ready to defend her from any threat to her person.

However, he was undertaking another, more important mission, one that only Empress Kaldwin trusted upon him. His mission was to investigate where the rat plague had come from. He had argued in letter form against his separation from the young Empress, as it was his duty to protect her at all costs, but his complaints fell on deaf ears. The original investigation by the late Empress Jessamine's men had concluded that a whaling ship had come across a ghost vessel inhabited by nothing but corpses, weepers, and the infamous rats from which the plague emerged before returning to Dunwall with rats that had stowed away in the cargo hold. Half the crew had died and the other half were sick when the ship finally crashed into the docks.

Corvo knew the Royal Spymaster's original report was forgery to cover the tracks of his attempt to remove the poor from Dunwall's streets with disease and make the city 'wealthier' as a result of a reduced population. Hiram Burrows, the fool, had recorded his confession in audiograph form. Unfortunately, Corvo only discovered this particular piece of information after twisting the Royal Spymaster's head sideways until the man's spine cracked like a falling tree branch. The ensuing changes in Dunwall's government had been…'hectic', to say the least, but Corvo was still unsure how many more of the Lord Regent's lies would surface. Most likely thousands. Though the man was dead, his influence in the 'intelligence' of the Empire was still felt years later, most of it fabrications to cover his tracks. The irony was that, while very good at deceit, the Royal Spymaster was completely incompetent at his true job and had crippled the Empire's knowledge of the surrounding world as a result. It was only just now that the extent of his ineptitude had been discovered, and Corvo was just beginning to work on cleaning out the web of treachery.

The true discovery had been the source of the plague. It wasn't some natural mutation or a curse of somekind. That would have been easy. The Royal Physician, Piero Joplin, had discovered the plague was scientifically engineered. Corvo was sure that the Empire was the only nation with the technology to cure a disease, let alone _create_ one, but Piero had assured him emphatically that the plague was manufactured. Once he got going, there was no placating that mad scientist, Corvo thought. So now here he was, on a mission to the Pandyssian Continent to eliminate the originator of the plague. Empress Emily Kaldwin had become vengeful after the assassination of her mother.

At least one of the old Royal Spymaster's reports had been correct. The ship that the Spymaster had taken the plague rats come from one of the old kingdoms on the continent.

Arendelle. The kingdom had been one of the last to be consumed by the plague on the continent, so it seemed to be the logical conclusion that Arendelle had probably created the rat plague in order to further their martial prowess, only to have it explode out of control, destroying the entire continent. '_The Doom of Pandyssia'_ as Corvo had heard the late Empress's heart tell him, '_has come to the city._' Thus, Arendelle was the logical destination.

As loathe as he was to leave the Empress's side, he had been very smart about his departure for his royal mission. No one could know that the famous Corvo Attano had left the Empress unattended. The Royal Spymaster had taken advantage of his diplomatic mission and arranged to murder the Empress last time, so as long as the country was under the illusion that Corvo was standing guard, especially with his new reputation, no one would dare strike at the new Lady Kaldwin. So he'd taken the pseudonym 'Mr. Crow' to hide his identity as he boarded passage to Arendelle. He'd chosen a whaling ship for this venture and paid the captain quite a lot of coin to take him where he wanted. An Imperial whaling ship wouldn't arouse suspicion even in foreign waters, as they often went on long journeys and sought refuge in foreign ports while hunting their prey.

Since these were the current thoughts floating about in Corvo's mind, he couldn't spare a rat's soggy shit for the opinions of two uneducated apes with mops. He stood on the bow, nearing Arendelle's waters, when he saw something that made the conversation on the boat between the two deckhands seem even more like foolish, idle gossip. Ice. It was a solid sheet, extending out from a massive blizzard cloud off in the distance. On cue, the horn blasted and the deckhands scrambled to their posts. The whaling ship turned sharply, trying it's best to avoid slamming into the ice, wrecking its hull, and sinking in water that would freeze a man to death in minutes. Corvo held on tightly, and the boat finally came to a stop, mere feet from the ice.

"Drop anchor!" the captain's voice boomed from the megaphone. As the anchor dropped, the captain came down from the helm and made his way through the deck toward Corvo, who stood still on the bow, assessing his situation. He couldn't leave his mission behind, but if he left the boat, the boat would leave him.

"Well, Mr. Crow, I don't have the men or the equipment to sail through ice," the captain began as Corvo decided that perhaps just finding a boat somewhere on Pandyssia would be sufficient for a return journey, "and I've got to get back to whaling. If you wish me to stay, well you might just have to -" Corvo didn't hear the rest the man had to say. He donned his mask, stepped off the front of the boat into the open air, teleported onto the ice, and started walking in the direction of Arendelle.

* * *

"What the- what?!" the captain blurted as Mr. Crow walked away on the ice, already a hundred feet away, nearing the storm with every step he took, "How did he…?"

The captain looked down and saw a sizeable pouch of gold where Mr. Crow had stood just moments before he disappeared onto the ice. The message was clear. He looked up just in time to see the masked man step into the storm and vanish from sight.

* * *

The wind buffeted around Corvo's head, snow swirling in his vision. He staggered forward, putting one foot in front of the other, making sure his path was straight. He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a mechanical beating heart. He held the heart in front of him, listening to late Empress's voice to guide him.

_Arendelle. A capital of trade. A prosperous kingdom ruled by a kind and generous queen. Her leadership only meant the plague destroyed the nation last._

He continued forward, the cold biting his fingers. The Outsider's magic warmed his blood, but only just enough that he didn't lose his extremities to frostbite. He still felt the chill down to his very bones. He squeezed the heart, hoping his direction had stayed true.

_A young prince tried to assassinate the queen. His brothers tore him limb from limb for his failure._

The wind picked up, but he continued onward, ignoring the pain in his fingers and toes. His mask saved his face, yet his body was unshielded. He had no choice. He had to push through.

_Their famed diplomacy didn't save the nobles when the mob took to the streets._

It became harder and harder to move forward. Every step was buffeted by wind. Had his clothing not been heavy and strapped down with his belts and his gear, it would have flown from his body.

_The winter storms are not natural. The queen summons them to protect her empty domain._

The last one caught Corvo's attention as he trudged forward. As far as he knew, magic, sorcery, and powers like the ones he could command had nothing to do with the elements.

_The queen sent her sister for aid for the kingdom. When the crew was slain by the plague, the derelict ship was claimed by the sea._

Corvo's boots stepped in something soft that made a light crunch. He looked down and saw snow. He'd made it ashore. Now it was time to find and kill the scientist who'd invented the plague. Simple. He stepped forward and suddenly he was within the capital harbor city. The winds and snow were behind him, all around the city, but the city was clear, the once proud buildings crumbling in decay. The main castle's gates were open, the towers ruins of a once proud fortress. The cold in the city was much more oppressive than in the storm. He slowly climbed up the docks and made his way toward the main gate, heart clenched in his hand.

_The queen froze the city to kill the rats. Only she survived the cold._

Corvo entered the courtyard, his boots softly padding against the cobblestones. He looked down at them, examining the brown stains all over. There had been a battle. Or a slaughter.

_Ice once covered these cobblestones. So did blood. The blood could not be washed away with spells._

He pressed himself against the interior gate into the palace proper. It gave way with little resistance. He continued inside, looking from left to right, seeing a grand opening, holes in the roof beaming light here and there, a deep red carpet stained with old blood. The staircase in the back of the room lead to massive double doors.

_The rats never made it inside the palace. That did not stop the bodies from festering in the halls._

He climbed the staircase.

_They threw the rioters from these stairs and put them to the sword. The queen's pleads for mercy were drowned out by the screams of dying men._

He got to the first landing and looked behind him, down the stairs and over the great opening hall. The heart thumped once in his hand.

_The queen would have let them torch the castle, until they dragged her sister from her chambers. The only time she killed was to protect her little sister._

The worst thing about this damn heart of secrets was the fact that it never shut up, Corvo thought, I do not wish to be reminded of every single person's tragic past. However, the heart was his only form of guidance in a city where he knew nothing. He pointed it at the doors at the top of the stairs. They were solid ice.

_The throne room is where the queen spends her days and nights, contemplating her failures._

He ascended to the top of the stairs and tried to peer through the keyhole. It was blocked by ice. He placed the heart inside the pouch and clenched his left fist, the mark burning his hand, whispering the dark words. His vision changed to a deep orange. Strangely enough, he saw nothing at all through the icy door, as it burned a bright yellow in his eyes. He angrily pulled the heart out, his vision returning to normal. The sorceress would tell him what he wished to know or she would die.

_Your heart is cold to dismiss such suffering._

Corvo opened the icy door into the throne room itself. Upon a glittering throne made of icicles sat a young woman, her dress a glittering blue that bared her shoulders and hands, a flowing cape adorned with snowflakes laid out in front of her. She was thin ad long and lean, her blonde hair in a single braid down her shoulder. Her eyes were closed, and she sat in the throne with a regal posture. Corvo couldn't tell if she was truly alive or if he was just hallucinating her slow, deep breaths. He held the heart out to listen. The heart could tell him if she truly lived.

_She loved her sister more than life itself. Her parents locked her away when she struck the princess on accident._

Not what he was looking for. Corvo took a step forward, the scrape of his boot echoing across the massive, tall room. This elicited no reaction from the queen, who sat perfectly still.

_Every morning after the queen's imprisonment, the princess would ask her to play through the keyhole. And every night, the queen-to-be would cry herself to sleep._

He took another step, keeping an eye on the woman. Nothing. The heart thumped once in his hand.

_Her parents were claimed by the sea. She dressed for their funeral but never left her room. Her prison had become her sanctuary._

Corvo closely examined her, standing still across the room from her. He was uncertain she was dead, but the heart was refusing to cooperate, instead telling tragic pasts.

_A dashing young prince tried to murder her. She now wishes her sister had not interfered._

He took another step forward. He could tell that she was breathing, very slowly, but alive. He was unsure as to whether she knew of his presence. Perhaps she was just waiting for him to end her torment, as the heart claimed. It thumped again in his hand.

_Her magic sustains her. She wishes it wouldn't. She has not eaten in a fortnight._

He noticed movement. A delicate finger twitched.

_As she fled the fjord, she froze the sea. She then realized she could have saved her parents._

Her eyes flared open, a piercing blue. Corvo drew his sword, twirling the handle in the air and catching it, the blade springing from the hilt. An instant later, his arms were rooted to the ground in pillars of solid ice. The heart started to thump wildly in his hand.

_Her grief for her beloved sister is the only thing left that she has of her._

* * *

"Who are you?" Elsa barked, standing to meet the stranger in front of her. He wore a metal mask that resembled a skull that was loosely sewn together with wire. The blade he'd drawn was obviously mechanical, as it had sprung from what she'd misconstrued as a keychain. His other hand clutched a heart that looked like it had been hacked to pieces and sewn back together, a window set into the center, wires attached to the veins. His coat had a number of buckles and a sash from which many strange devices hung, all of which looked to be made of sharp, shiny metal. She looked him over suspiciously. His attire reminded her of Weselton, but the figure seemed far too mechanical to be from there. The stranger certainly wasn't from the Southern Isles, or from anywhere else on the continent. Perhaps…no. Not the Empire. She'd sent Anna years ago there for help.

Elsa immediately felt a pang of remorse. Her sister had volunteered at the plague's worst moment, to find help. She'd never returned. Elsa knew that her sister's ship had sunk, but what was worse was when she saw the rats in the life boat they'd left behind. Anna had died in misery and pain, blood streaming from her eyes as she tried her best to save her sister's kingdom. It had been Elsa's fault. She should have protected her, insisted that she stayed, the girl who stood in front of Hans' sword, her own veritable knight in shining armor.

Elsa had killed to save her when the angry crowd dragged her from the castle. She remembered the spikes of ice, the bodies wrenched in awkward ways, the crowd screaming curses, insults, and fear, recoiling from their once beloved queen, and the blood. So much blood. Her worst fear had come true. She'd killed men and women with her powers, powers she'd promised to control. She didn't want to hurt them. She wanted them to just get away from Anna, to leave her sister alone. But she lost control. She killed them. She killed them all.

She'd locked herself away in the throne room, barring the door with ice. She shut everyone out, save for her sister. She couldn't let herself do that to Anna, even for her safety. She loved her too much. But then Anna proposed to take ship to the Empire, to ask for aid. Elsa had pleaded with her to stay, just to live out the rest of their days, the two of them, alone, away from this mess she'd created. Anna had shaken her head, saying, "I'm not giving up on them. You shouldn't, either." Elsa had relented. Now Anna was dead, the city was destroyed, and Elsa was the only one left. She froze the city to keep the rats at bay and surrounded the city with a storm to keep the evacuated survivors out. It was just her with nothing but ruins and frozen corpses of both man and rat alike.

Now she wasn't alone. The figure struggled against his icy restraints to no avail. Elsa walked toward him to examine him more closely. He made no vocal noises as he tried to thrash around. He was obviously magical, as the temperatures inside the city were enough to freeze flesh solid in seconds, and she had engineered her storm so that it would confuse people and send them back out from where they had come. As she got closer, the robotic heart in his hand thumped faster and faster. It was an interesting contraption, but it made her uneasy. What power would give life to a dead heart. She stepped around behind him when something caught her attention. His left hand was marked with a black inscription. She could sense the darkness emanating from it. "_A curse_," she'd read in her library as she studied her…condition, "_is usually easy to differentiate from a hereditary power because the accursed soul is branded in some way. Most cursed powers are dark and mysterious in some nature, whereas hereditary powers are almost universally elemental._"

So this man was cursed. She had studied the marks intently and searched her body for any of them, as most curses could be lifted. She found no marks on her body, but she still remembered the symbols. The mark on his hand matched the one on the very bottom of the list. She recalled the book's description.

"_Known as The Outsider's Mark, or the Void Curse, this particular curse is perhaps one of the most tricky to classify, as, unlike most other curses, it bestows the accursed with incredible dark powers. However, victims of the curse seem to slowly lose their minds if their lives are not violently cut short. Victims often make strange shrines and mark the walls of their homes with graffiti, and all speak of a mythical, black eyed man, who speaks of their future and their past. Known as the Outsider, this figure seems to have no interest in the world other than finding people who are 'interesting' and bestowing upon them powers just to see what they would do with them, often bestowing powers upon two opposing people. The results of this curse usually tend to inflict harm on not just the accursed, but on those around them as well, as the afflicted tend to use their powers to violent ends against their enemies. This curse is one of the few that cannot be lifted and the persons afflicted with this curse can be extremely dangerous, often bringing cities to their knees._"

She studied the figure in front of her as he wriggled against his constraints. Perhaps he was mad, intending to harm her because voices in his head told him to do it. Maybe he specifically sent on a mission by someone to assassinate her. People blamed her for bad winter weather, why not the rats as well? Regardless, here he was, blade in one hand and a strange heart contraption in the other. She returned to her throne and sat, crossing her legs.

"I don't want to hurt you."

He refused to respond, continuing to struggle against the ice. He stopped and looked around. The heart dropped from his hand and landed on the floor. His now empty hand clenched into a fist, the hand that had been marked. Before she realized what was happening, the ice pillars that bound him shattered. She raised her hands and an ice wall shielded her from the shards. She looked over it. Both he and the heart were nowhere to be seen.

"_**extremely dangerous**_"

Of course. Of course she'd underestimated him. She looked around this way and that, trying to locate him. She called out to the masked stranger, hoping he'd hear her.

"Just tell me why you are here. I don't want to fight, but I will if you attack me."

She heard the scuff of a boot. She looked up to where she heard the sound. He was dropping from one of the chandeliers, sword poised for a killing blow. She threw up her hands to shield herself. He bounced off the resulting ice wall and landed on the floor. His hand reached for one of the contraptions on his sash. Elsa quickly realized it was a crossbow. She brought up another ice shield, catching two bolts an inch from her skull. Suddenly, he materialized right beside her, his body composing itself out of thin air from what seemed to be tiny pieces of himself. He brought his sword down above her head. She summoned an arctic wind that threw him backward. He skidded across the ice and then disappeared. She caught sight of him to her right and ducked, two more bolts whistling past her head. He raised his glowing hand and the ice before him turned into a liquid black color. Rats appeared from the darkness and scampered toward her, snapping and squeaking. He lashed out with his hand and Elsa's vision turned green. She started being dragged toward him by some unseen force, and the rats grew closer and closer. She fell back and tried to scramble away, to no avail.

He was trying to kill her. She had to get away from the rats. They'd devour her in seconds. She tried to grasp the ice, tried to fling herself out of the magic. Nothing. The rats were relentless. Elsa realized that she had to strike at him in order to save herself from a grizzly, painful death. She extended her left hand, feeling the power from inside. An ice spike four feet long fired from her hand toward the masked assailant. He pulled his hand away and dodged to the side, the spike barely missing his head and Elsa no longer felt the pulling sensation. She blasted the rats with a gust of cold, freezing them solid. She scrambled to her feet. He was gone.

"What would you gain by killing me?" Elsa called out, remembering her earlier mistake and searching the chandeliers. She peered around the whole room, failing to catch sight of him. But she knew he was here. He had to be. He wouldn't put so much effort into killing her just to back off now. He'd barely started. He was planning his attack. She came to another realization. He might never stop. Until his heart stopped beating. She didn't want to do that. She didn't wish to kill again. She wished to parley, or at the very least, locate him, "Who are you? Why are you here? Why are you trying to -"

_BLAM!_

She looked for the sound and saw him, standing in front of the throne, a strange, tubular device in his hand, smoke coming from the tip. She looked at herself. Nothing. She looked up. The chandelier was coming down. She dodged to the side as it crashed to the ground. In that moment, she knew, no matter how much she begged or pleaded, that he would not stop until he killed her. Fine. Two could play at that game. She struck the icy floor with her hand and four sentries grew from the floor. They were armored and armed in ice the shape of the armor in the hall. They drew swords of glittering frost and silently charged the masked assassin. She summoned two more to join them. Six against one.

She smiled as they closed in on him. Her smile died when his blade flashed faster than the eye could see and two of her icy knights dropped to the floor, their swords and armor in pieces. He became a whirlwind of movement when the other four rushed him. Steel clanged against ice. Elsa summoned eight more sentries and threw them into the fray. She knew he'd destroy them, but she needed time, time to plan, time to think, time to summon more powerful magic from every vestige of her soul and body. If she could freeze an entire city, she certainly summon a gale powerful enough to smash the assassin so hard against the walls that he would explode into tiny pieces. She heard the sounds of the assassin's battle with the sentries, ignoring it as she felt magic come from deep inside her chest all the way out to her fingertips and toes.

The last sentry fell just as Elsa had finished gathering her power. The man looked up from the broken ice-men just in time to get caught by the full blast. A gale force wind, hard enough to shatter the ice throne into a million pieces from the sheer force of it. The assassin flew backward into the air, tossed about by the winds. She was surprised the force of it didn't strip him to the bone. He slammed against the wall, pinned. He struggled against the tempest to no avail. Elsa had him. Now, all she had to do was finish him off. She summoned a spike of ice. His left hand glowed. She fired it directly at it his heart.

The spike was barely a foot away from its target when time stopped. Elsa saw the crystals in her storm, frozen in space and time. She saw the whole throne room, preserved in the moment. The spike was completely still, hovering in the air, a foot from Elsa's target. Everything was black and white. The man's hand glowed white, distorting her vision around him. It was his fault. She hoped he'd just frozen time for a few seconds to contemplate his fate fully before his inevitable demise. To her dismay, however, he calmly pulled himself from the wall and stepped out of the way of the spike and her tempest, making an affluent and mocking bow with a twirl of his glowing hand. She moved to strike him with another projectile, but her movements were sluggish. His magic slowed her as well as froze time. He casually approached her, twirling his sword around him in an arrogant dance. She summoned what will she could muster and summoned an icicle to her hand. She did her best to back away from him, moving slowly. Too slowly. He was closing the distance, sword now gripped tightly in his hand. _This is the end_, she thought, _this is how I'm going to die._

Time suddenly sped back up. The man lunged.

She didn't want to die.

She caught him in the chest with a blast of pure magical energy. He flew back, clutching his chest. It was the same kind of magic that froze her sister's heart. Nothing but pure, ice cold fear. She knew it would have no effect, as he was already cursed, but it gave her just the respite she needed. She struck the ground with a blast of energy, and the massive snow golem emerged, teeth and claws made of ice, spines of icicles on its back. It roared loudly and charged. She summoned more a dozen more sentries and sent them toward the assassin.

She went to work as the masked man sprinted toward her, sliding under the golem's swinging arms and legs, leaving behind a small device. It exploded and the golem fell apart in a shower of shredded snow and ice. He returned to his feet and engaged the nearest sentinel. Elsa drew the shards of her throne around her, creating more, many more, until there were thousands all swirling about her viciously, all ammunition for her next step. She calmly watched as the assassin tore through her sentinels, his blade twirling and dancing in the light, slicing cleanly through ice and snow. He dealt with two of the remaining three. The third swung at his back as the others fell. He spun around and parried in one fluid movement. He jammed the blade of his sword into its neck, grabbed it by the helmet under the jaw with his free hand, and tore its head from its shoulders. Then he did the last thing she'd ever expect him to do.

He ran.

The maksed man fled through a door and down the adjoining hall, pursued by Elsa's ice shards. She fired hundreds of them at him, pouring all her agony, fury, and hatred from the past few years into each and every shot. They sped down the corridor at speeds that could punch through bone. He dodged them effortlessly, seeming to dance around them as if they were butterflies. However, she knew she was having an effect. He was tiring, quickly, and he would soon have nowhere to go. He reached the end of the hall, the end of the line. He turned and faced her. She couldn't see his eyes through his mask, but she suspected if he had no mask, she'd see fear. Good.

She threw both of her arms in his direction. Thousands of icicles, spikes, and shards flew toward him. He clenched his left hand into a fist over his opposite shoulder. The mark burned yellow. He threw his hand forward, opening his hand. Elsa felt a blast of wind and an instant later she had to throw up a shield to deflect her own projectiles. Of course he'd lulled her into a false sense of security. Something round and metal rolled to the foot of the wall she made. A small piece of twine burned brightly, fizzing loudly. She had no idea what the object was, but considering this assassin's skills and tools, she started backing away. She probably only had moments to get away before -.

Small sparks shot out of a little hole in the ball and suddenly stopped for a split second. The ball exploded, shattering the ice shield and sending Elsa flying back. She quickly got to her feet and saw him advancing through the smoke, tightening his grip on his sword, his stance one of anger. She aimed a blast of ice at him. She intended to freeze him where he stood, remove the mask, and then jam an icicle into his eye. She let the ice fly at him, summoning the icicle in her right hand.

He vanished and materialized mere inches from her. She felt cold steel pierce her abdomen and rip out of her back. He grabbed her with his free arm and pulled her closer, driving the blade all the way into her gut. As much as it hurt, it gave her the opportunity she needed. She plunged the long, sharp, icicle deep into the man's chest. He coughed loudly and blood seeped from the cloth underneath the mask. He pulled away and staggered back, pulling the blade free of Elsa's belly. It clattered when it hit the floor, dripping with blood. Elsa's blood. She collapsed on her hands and knees, her left hand clutching her wound. The man reached up slowly and pulled the icicle out of his chest, making blood pour down his coat. He fell onto his back, coughing loudly, blood pooling below him as it bubbled out of his wound. She crawled over to him as he twitched, every one of her movements pure agony. She grabbed his sword by the hilt as she neared him. She took the sword, got up on her knees, and placed the sharp tip just above his clavicle in the center of his chest, where his throat met his chest. He weakly grabbed the blade.

"I warned you. I warned you that I would fight back," Elsa gasped, "Why did you kill me? Why did you make me kill you?" He declined to respond. She used her right hand to pull his mask off. She saw a man with dark hair. His handsome face was stained with his own blood, which dripped from the corners of his mouth as he coughed. Yet his eyes reflected an anger, cruelty, and menace that she had never seen before. He was daring her to kill him. She was happy to oblige. Elsa leaned into the sword, putting her weight behind it, and it sank down into his flesh. Blood poured out from his throat and his hand, which gripped the blade harder as it sliced through skin and muscle. His legs kicked involuntarily as blood bubbled up from his mouth and from where the blade pierced his throat. He coughed and choked, sending a spurt of blood flying from his lips as he slowly drowned on the liquid that was no longer sustaining his life. Moments later, he was still, eyes glassy, staring straight up. No more malice or daring shone from them. They were lifeless.

Now that the dirty deed was done, there was only one thing left for her to do. She wanted to visit Anna's room before she died. Elsa crawled away from the assassin's corpse, but didn't make it more than a foot before she was too weak to move forward. She collapsed on her front and tried to drag herself farther, her voice shaking and wimpering, "Not yet," she breathed, "Not yet," she inched forward on the cobblestones and the red carpet, her blood making the stones slick. Her vision began to darken.

"No," she pleaded, "Please," however, her body was willing to go no further. She feebly tried to freeze her wound, hoping to staunch the blood flow, give her enough time to get to Anna's room. But when the power left her fingers, it was merely an icy swirl that dissipated not an inch from her hand, "Anna," she whispered, "Anna, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Anna, I'm so sorry," she didn't know what she was apologizing for. Striking her as a child, perhaps? Freezing her heart? Killing the men who tried to harm her? Failing to die by her side at sea? Killing the assassin? Bleeding to death in the halls? She only knew she couldn't stop saying it, tears pouring down her face. She watched the blood pool beneath her as she turned to lie on her side. She felt tired. So tired.

"I'm coming home, Anna," she said before she finally closed her eyes. Before her life finally left her, she felt one last thing, something she'd never thought possible.

Cold.

* * *

**If you wish, after reading, you could look up Sigur Ros's arrangement of The Rains of Castamere. That dirge, funeral march quality in it was something I was listening to when I wrote the last few paragraphs.**

**Thank you for reading!**

**robertskycard**


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